Bellator 91's Saad Awad seeing perseverance starting to pay off

It hasn’t been that long since the California-based fighter was plodding along, up and down on the regional circuit, that he’s forgotten about it. In fact, it might just help bring him added motivation these days.

Awad (13-4 MMA, 1-1 BFC) on Thursday stopped heavy favorite Will Brooks (9-0 MMA, 1-0 BFC) in the first round of their Season 8 lightweight tournament semifinal fight at Bellator 91 to advance to the finals. And he stopped him with authority, never really letting the highly touted prospect get started. Bellator 91 took place at Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, N.M.

“To be honest, I tried to stop the fight a little sooner,” Awad on Friday told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “I didn’t want to hit the dude that much. I mean, Will Brooks is an awesome guy. He’s really nice, and I’m not there to really hurt people. I know what happens when you get knocked out and people keep pounding on you – it can cause a lot of damage. I knew he was hurt from the get-go, and I was kind of letting off a little bit, and the referee wasn’t stopping it, so I hit him more. Then I let off a little bit and then was like, ‘All right. I guess I’m going to keep going until the referee stops it.’ Eventually, he did stop it.”

Awad took his first Bellator tournament fight on short noticed and advanced to the semifinals with a 31-second knockout of Guillaume DeLorenzi in January. His knockout of Brooks came in just 43 seconds to give him a six-fight win streak.

But even though it seems to most like Awad is a fresh name on the scene, he’s been in Bellator before. His debut with the promotion in 2009 was a first-round submission loss to Diego Garijo at Bellator 10. And it’s a loss he wishes he could have back – because he didn’t go for the finish, the way he learned to do against Brooks in Thursday’s win.

“My first fight in Bellator, I chased a guy down and let him get back up about four times,” Awad said. “I paid for it because I didn’t pounce on him like I should have. When (Brooks) was holding my leg, I was hitting him and I knew he was out. I finally decided to pull my leg up and he just laid there. I looked at the ref and was like, ‘OK. F—. Here we go again. What if I gas myself out trying to put him out and have to go through this repeat of what happened before?'”

But this time, Awad finished. And the loss in his Bellator debut might seem like a distant memory, even though it’s helping Awad realize now that staying in the sport when he had the briefest thoughts of hanging it up was the right choice.

He’ll face David Rickels in the lightweight tournament finals with a total of $100,000 in tournament prize money on the line and an eventual lightweight title shot. When he got the call from Bellator to hop into this tourney, things started to change for him.

“It felt like I was getting old fast because it felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere,” he said. “If you’re not in the big shows making money, (your career) gets going by fast. You’re getting old fast, your body’s getting beat up. You start thinking about your career and how long you’re going to do this for on small shows, getting paid change and taking so much of a beating. I know it’s only been two months since stuff started to change, but I’m excited to see where I can take it from here.”

Before all of this, Awad, who is 29, had let the thought of retirement creep into his mind.

“I did before a year or two years ago when I would lose fights, or when I couldn’t get fights or was getting fights on small shows,” he said. “Then I started really thinking about it. And I thought to myself that I’ve put way too much time into it to walk away now. I know what I’m capable of doing and I know how much I put into the training. I told myself to hit it hard for a while and see where it takes me. If it goes good, it goes good, and if it doesn’t, then I’ve really got to start rethinking it. Thank God it finally started paying off.”

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